1. United States
2. Fla.
3. Letter

The Level 2 background check requirements in CS/SB 7030 must be changed. I appreciate you wanting to protect my children, but the way the bill is written does not protect them, but bars them from opportunities. My disabled children are already extra work for organizations and individuals to take on as students, simply because of the nature of their disabilities. Finding providers willing to do that extra work is hard enough. Adding a Level 2 background check requirement, which requires a significant amount of money and time for every adult, will be a step too far when they have tens or hundreds of abled students they can take on without the hassle. The bill is also unclear about who exactly needs these checks. Every volunteer who rotates through the organization? Other teachers at the organization who don't work with my student? Substitutes? Front desk staff? Adult students (e.g., at taekwondo classes are organized by skill level not age)? Guest speakers? Parents who wait on site? This requirement can quickly cost small businesses thousands of dollars they do not have, as well as significant time and organization, and then costs and time would be required forever going forward to stay in compliance. For small businesses, they will not have the resources, for larger businesses they will not be willing to for a handful of students. Another concern is implementation. We all know that government organizations are slow and unwieldy; how long will it take the DOE to process these checks? How will they be processed? Is the provider expected to give me all adults' background checks to submit with personal information like their SSN? Are they expected to somehow submit it themselves? If the latter, who is keeping the database so every parent who uses that organization can find them for their submissions? (This is already a significant problem with the much more limited provider database that currently exists, but we have the option to submit paperwork ourselves when we can't find them.) Who is overseeing making sure every adult has been checked, and keeping up with all new hiring at every single small business? Requiring background checks works at public schools, because it is all internal to government, but with tens of thousands of private businesses and individuals, it is simply not logistically feasible. What's more, every time a program hires someone, will their payments stop for weeks or, more likely, months while that background check is processed by the DOE? My children benefit hugely from the educational opportunities with non-disabled peers this scholarship affords them. If this passes, those are lost. I appreciate your desire to keep our children safe, and I share it, but what this provision does is not keep children safe but instead deny them access to opportunities. Please, I beg you, remove it from the bill, or if it stays, vote no. Don't make educating disabled children even more burdensome.